“Put the hat back on, Ce’Nedra,” Lady Polgara told her. “I don’t want you getting sunstroke.”
Ce’Nedra obediently put her hat back on. “He’s coming back,” she reported, pointing at a speck in the sky high above them.
“Will you excuse me?” General Varana said, turning his horse to leave.
“You’re being absurd, Varana,” King Rhodar told the Tolnedran. “Why do you insist on refusing to admit he can do things you don’t want to believe in?”
“It’s a matter of principle, your Majesty,” the general replied. “Tolnedrans do not believe in sorcery. I am a Tolnedran, therefore I do not admit that it exists.” He hesitated. “I must concede, however, that his information is surprisingly accurate – however he gets it.”
A large, blue-banded hawk fell suddenly out of the broiling air like a stone, flared his wings at the last moment, and settled on the ground directly in front of them.
General Varana resolutely turned his back and stared with apparently deep interest at a featureless hill some five miles distant.
The hawk began to shimmer and change even as he folded his wings. “Are you stopping again?” Beldin demanded irascibly.
“We have to rest the troops, Uncle,” Polgara replied.
“This isn’t a Sunday stroll, Pol,” Beldin retorted. He began to scratch one armpit, befouling the air around him with a string of rancid curses.
“What’s the matter?” Polgara asked mildly.
“Lice,” he grunted.
“How did he get lice?”
“I visited some other birds to ask if they’d seen anything. I think I picked them up in a vulture’s nest.”
“What could possibly possess you to go consorting with vultures?”
“Vultures aren’t that bad, Pol. They perform a necessary function, and the chicks do have a certain charm. The she-vulture had been picking at a dead horse about twenty leagues south of here. After she told me about it, I went down to take a look. There’s a Murgo column coming this way.”
“How many?” General Varana asked quickly, his back still turned to them.
“A thousand or so,” Beldin shrugged. “They’re pushing hard. They’ll probably intercept you tomorrow morning.”
“A thousand Murgos aren’t that much to worry about,” King Rhodar said, frowning. “Not to an army of this size. But what’s the point of throwing a thousand men away? What does Taur Urgas hope to accomplish?” He turned to Hettar. “Do you suppose you could ride ahead and ask Korodullin and the Baron of Vo Mandor to join us. I think we ought to have a conference.”
Hettar nodded and loped his horse ahead toward the gleaming ranks of the Mimbrate knights at the head of the column.
“Were there any Grolims with the Murgos, Uncle?” Polgara asked the filthy hunchback.
“Not unless they were well-hidden,” he replied. “I didn’t probe too much, though. I didn’t want to give myself away.”
General Varana abruptly abandoned his careful study of the hills around them and turned his horse about to join them. “My first guess would be that the Murgo column is a token gesture from Taur Urgas. He probably wants to get on the good side of King Gethell; and since the Malloreans won’t leave Thull Zelik, he can pick up some advantage by committing a few troops to aid in the defense of the Thullish towns and villages we’ve been destroying.”
“That makes sense, Rhodar,” Anheg agreed.
“Maybe,” Rhodar said dubiously. “Taur Urgas doesn’t think like a rational man, though.”
King Korodullin, flanked by Mandorallen and the Baron of Vo Ebor, thundered back to join them. Their armor flashed in the sun, and all three were flushed and miserable-looking in their steel casings.
“How can you stand all that?” Rhodar asked.
“Custom, your Majesty,” Korodullin replied. “The armor doth inflict some discomfort, but we have learned to endure it.”
General Varana quickly sketched in the situation for them. Mandorallen shrugged. “It is of no moment. I will take some few dozen men and smash this threat from the south.”
Barak looked at King Anheg. “You see what I mean about him?” he said. “Now you can understand why I was so nervous all the time we were chasing across Cthol Murgos.”
King Fulrach had ridden forward to join the conference, and he cleared his throat diffidently. “Might I make a suggestion?” he asked.
“We eagerly await the practical wisdom of the King of the Sendars,” Korodullin replied with extravagant courtesy.
“The Murgo column doesn’t really pose much of a threat, does it?” Fulrach inquired.
“Not really, your Majesty,” Varana replied. “At least, now that we know that they’re out there. We think that they’re some kind of minor relief column sent to placate the Thulls. Their presence in our vicinity is probably entirely accidental.”
“I don’t want them getting close enough to recognize my ships, though,” Anheg declared firmly.
“We’ll take care of that, Anheg,” Rhodar told him.
“Any one of the elements of our army might easily overcome so slight a threat,” Fulrach continued, “but mightn’t it be better – from a morale standpoint – to give the victory to the entire army?”
“I don’t quite follow you, Fulrach,” Anheg said.
“Instead of letting Sir Mandorallen annihilate these thousand Murgos all by himself, why not select a contingent from each part of the army to deal with them? Not only will that give us some experience in tactical coordination, but it’ll give all the men a sense of pride. An easy victory now will stiffen their backs when we run into more difficult times later.”
“Fulrach, sometimes you positively amaze me,” Rhodar declared. “I think the whole trouble is that you don’t look that clever.”
The contingents that were to turn south to meet the approaching Murgos were selected by lot, once again at the suggestion of King Fulrach. “That way there’ll be no suspicion in the army that this is some kind of elite force,” he noted.
While the rest of the column pushed on toward the headwaters of the River Mardu, the miniature army under the command of Barak, Hettar, and Mandorallen veered to the south to intercept the enemy spearhead.
“They’ll be all right, won’t they?” Ce’Nedra nervously asked Polgara as she watched them growing smaller and smaller as they rode off across the arid valley toward the solid line of mountains to the south.
“I’m certain they will, dear,” Polgara replied confidently.
The princess, however, did not sleep that night. For the first time, members of her army were committed to a real battle, and she tossed and turned the entire night, imagining all manner of disasters.
About midmorning of the following day, however, the special force returned. There were a few bandages here and there and perhaps a dozen empty saddles, but the look of victory shone on every face.
“Very nice little fight,” Barak reported. The huge man was grinning broadly. “We caught them just before sundown. They never knew what hit them.”
General Varana, who had accompanied the force to observe, was a bit more precise as he described the engagement to the assembled kings.
“The general tactics did work pretty much as we’d planned,” he said. “The Asturian archers swept the column with an arrow storm to begin with, and then the infantry units moved into position at the top of a long slope. We interspersed legionnaires, Drasnian pikemen, Sendars and the Arendish serf units evenly along the entire front with the archers behind them to continue harassing the enemy with arrows. As we expected, the Murgos charged. As soon as they’d committed themselves, the Chereks and Rivans moved into position behind them, and the Algars began slashing their flanks. When the Murgo assault began to falter, the Mimbrate knights made their charge.”
“It was absolutely splendid!” Lelldorin exclaimed, his eyes very bright. There was a bandage around the young Asturian’s upper arm, but he seemed to have forgotten that it was there as he gesticulated wildly. “Just at the point when the Murgos were completely confused, there was a sound like thunder, and the knights came curving around the side of a hill with their lances advanced and their pennons streaming. They bore down on the Murgos – a wave of solid steel – and the hoofs of their horses shook the earth. And then at the last moment, they all lowered their lances. It was like watching a wave break. And then they hit the Murgos with a great crash, and they didn’t even slow down. They rode through them as if they weren’t even there! They absolutely crushed them, and then we all ran in to finish up. It was glorious!”
“He’s as bad as Mandorallen, isn’t he?” Barak observed to Hettar.
“I think it’s in their blood,” Hettar replied sagely.
“Did any of them get away?” Anheg asked.
Barak gave his cousin an evil grin. “After it got dark, we could hear a few of them trying to crawl away. That’s when Relg and his Ulgos went out to tidy up. Don’t worry, Anheg. Nobody’s going to report back to Taur Urgas.”